The Ohio State University, one of the largest colleges in the Unites States with over 64,000 students and nearly 30,000 faculty and staff members, must frame a financial plan committed to improving educational and research facilities while maintaining an emphasis on student educational advancement.
Breaking down the numbers
The 2016 Ohio State budget is a shade over $3 billion (excluding the health system). The university allocates over half ($1.8 billion) of its budget towards salaries and benefits for faculty and staff – a $49.1 million increase from last year. Student financial aid, by comparison, receives around 4.6 percent ($140 million) of operating funds.
High faculty salaries remain an important part of the budget in order to sustain a national position of highest quality staff. The newly built dorms and dining facilities require staff, as well as the clinical faculty in the College of Medicine, Public Health faculty and in the engineering facilities.
The university allocates $2.2 billion towards supplies. However, Ohio State fails to define the nature of these expenses in their budget, making it harder to know if it’s really impacting students’ education. Moreover, the $1 million increase towards Student life does not include any explanation on the specifics this might include, except for the newly opened dorms. Even so, these details emerge as vague.
Student fees
We’ve also seen rather large increases in spending on utilities and services over the past few years, in some ways funded directly by matching increases in student fees.
Ohio State now has a two-year on-campus living requirement which has raised student expenses. Last year’s North Campus construction project increased utility costs for the four new residence halls and one new dining facility that opened this fall. Additional service expenses support built-in study rooms, coffee shops and dining facilities.
Ohio State’s transition to a new financial management system, Workday, came with a $17.5 million price tag. A $7.6 million accretion in other expenses for OH-Tech influence a boost in eContent for OhioLINK and HEI/Research Portal expenses. The university’s mission thrives on providing OSU’s student and staff access to expanded academic resources.
An immense amount of the budget has gone towards the construction of Student Life facilities because of the new two-year living requirement. The university perceives this change as a means of improving student retention rates and increased graduation likelihoods.
Paying staff vs. student-centric expenses
Staff salary expenses remain high in order to contend with the local employment marks and hiring quality staff means providing premium wages. Ohio State uses its parking funds – $83 million since 2012 – to hire prestigious faculty. The university aims to hire 500 tenured faculty over the term of ten years.
By concentrating on improvements to its faculty and educational facilities, The Ohio State University has used indirect means to provide student benefit. Quality staff is important, but this is coming as a detriment to the financial aid students so desperately need. A shift towards more direct student-first services (ie. financial aid, educational programming, etc.) would accentuate a stronger educational initiative that values a cheaper and accessible educational experience.
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